tand. At the station you make a great show of
nominal rolls and movement orders, and finally get your Highlanders
packed safely in their compartments under strict injunctions not to
leave the train without your orders.

Now comes the time to look after your own comfort. If you have "been up"
before you have learnt that it is wise to stroll into the town for your
last proper tea, and not to come back much before six o'clock, by which
time the train is thinking of reluctantly crawling out of the station.
If, in your absence, someone has else has tried to settle in your
compartment, providing his rank is not superior to your own, you get rid
of him either by lying strenuously or by using a little force. Thus, if
you are lucky, a good liar, or a muscular man, you can keep the carriage
for yourself, your particular friend, your kits, and your provisions
(which last, in the form of bottles, require no small space).

All along the line are children, waving their grubby hands and shouting
in monotonous reiteration, "Souvenir biskeet, souvenir bully biff," and
you throw them their souvenirs without delay, for no man sets out for
war without a plentiful stock of more interesting provisions to keep his
spirits up. All along the train, in disobedience of orders, the carriage
doors are open, and "Tommies" and "Jocks," and "Pats" are seated on the
footboards, singing, shouting, laughing.

This, until night falls. Then, one by one, the carriage doors are shut,
and the men set about the business of sleeping. Here and there, perhaps,
is a man who stays awake, wondering what the future will bring him, how
his wife and children will get on if he is killed, and how many of these
men, who are lolling in grotesque attitudes all round him, will ever
come back down the line. In the daylight, the excitement drives away
these thoughts--there are songs to sing and sights to see--but as the
train jolts on through the night, there seems to be an undefinable
feeling of fear. What will it be like to be shelled, to fight, to die?

Morning brings cheerfulness again. There are halts at Boulogne and
Calais; news must be obtained from English sentries and French railway
officials; there is, in one place, a train of German prisoners; there
are long halts at tiny stations where you can procure hot water while
the O.C. Train discusses life with the R.T.O.; there are the
thousand-and-one things which serve to remind you that you are in the
war zone, althou